SAP iXp Intern Spotlight: Shweta Yadav

Shweta Yadav is in her final year of her studies at the National Institute of Design in Bangalore. Shweta hails from a small town called Rewari in north of India. She’s passionate about fitness and is fond of going backpacking and exploring. She says her passion is to seek new experiences.

In her most recent professional experience, last July, Shweta joined SAP Labs India in Bangalore as a User Experience Designer on the the Retail Innovation Project “Stilista.” We touched base with Shweta to learn more about her passions, hobbies and what she’s learned during her time with SAP.

A: My manger says the kind of energy I bring to the table is something which differentiates me from my peers, it can’t be faked. Along with this, my approach towards creativity and innovative ideas, user research and empathizing with the users are what drive me in my everyday projects.

Q: What are some of your first impressions of the iXp program?

A: To be frank I didn’t know that iXp is such a big program. I thought it was just a concept and onboarding activity. Now that I have spent four months at SAP, I can see the constant activites happening within the program, from learning sessions on honing your softskills, to a D&I session with an executive, and CSR activities. There’s always a learning opportunity.

Q:Is your role like what you imagined or different?

A: As I am fresh out of college I was little scared of the typical corporate environment, but here I found that employees are encouraged to innovate, think outside the box and participate in competitions. The environment and culture is like a big family, where people are happy and there’s a positive vibe in the office. Also my team is an absolute bliss. There is not a single dull momemt. We cheer each other to the point where I feel nothing is impossible for me.

Q: Tell us a bit about your project. What products or services do you support?

A: Stilista is an Omni channel shopping experience that focuses on styling an indvidual based on their body shape, size, preferences and purchasing power. It is based on a personal shopping assistance and wardrobe solution. It includes modern computing technologies like data mining, machine learning and natural language processing to help shoppers and retailers make informed decisions.

Starting from primary user research on shoppers and retailers in the form of interviews and surveys, I created a short video and described the problem statement. I conducted a Design Thinking workshop with a focused group of participants that included retail brand’s product heads, fashion designers, fashion merchandisers, fashion academicians, casual shoppers, user experience designers, SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR) experts, and SAP retail experts .

We did brainstorming sessions and then came up with business ideas and concepts, which later helped me draw insights and develop the solution. Right now im doing concept validation with shoppers and retailers for their feedback.

Q: What are some of the key learnings you’ve had since joining SAP?

A:

Design Thinking Workshop – I attended a workshop first, and after one month I organized one for my project, which is was an amazing experience.

INNVENT and AWISHKAR Competitions: Made a demo and presented it in front of jury panels.

Photo courtesy of Shweta Yadav.

Personal Growth: Team player and learning from my manager, team members, other people across SAP. Articulating skills and the confidence to deliver or pitch a presentation and email etiquettes .

Extra Curricular Activities: SAP’s annual day where India’s big singer Sonu Nigam performed, followed by a dance party where I had lot of fun with my friends and made new friends.

Q: Which iXp learning session has been your favorite thus far?

A: My personal favorite was the Email Etiquette and the Art of Presentation Power Hours, where we had professional leadership trainers. It was a very interactive session where trainers gave us tasks on the spot and we did a dry run as well. We received feedback at the end of our presentation.

Q: What’s your relationship like with your hiring manager or mentor?

A: I call my manger an “idea factory.” He is a fantastic person who helps the team grow professionally. Being designers, we must keep up-to-date with the latest technologies that include machine learning, SAP Leonardo, IoT and deep learning. My manager encourages our team to keep learning. He’s conducted a TechTalk series within our team to push us to constantly learn and share ideas with each other. We also have “design time” in our team where we present any pet project/portfolio/design document worth sharing with the team.